Tag Archives | Copyright

The Pirate Bay To Team Up With North Korea

By on March 8, 2013 in News 10

Updated: The announcement of this insane-sounding collaboration turns out to be a hoax, sadly, but imagine what could have been.

An announcement of strange bedfellows by The Pirate Bay:

The Pirate Bay has been hunted in many countries around the world. Today we can reveal that we have been invited by the leader of the republic of Korea, to fight our battles from their network.

This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high. And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information.

We believe that being offered our virtual asylum in Korea is a first step of this country’s changing view of access to information.

… Read the rest

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Schools Consider Taking Ownership Of Students’ Work

By on February 6, 2013 in News 20

What a life lesson the kids will learn. The Washington Post on guidelines under consideration by the county surrounding Washington D.C.:

A proposal by the Prince George’s County Board of Education to copyright work created by staff and students for school could mean that a picture drawn by a first-grader, a lesson plan developed by a teacher or an app created by a teen would belong to the school system, not the individual. Some have questioned the legality of the proposal as it relates to students.

If the policy is approved, the county would become the only jurisdiction in the Washington region where the school board assumes ownership of work done by the school system’s staff and students.

David Rein, a lawyer and adjunct law professor who teaches intellectual property at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, said he had never heard of a local school board enacting a policy allowing it to hold the copyright for a student’s work.

… Read the rest

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Sony Releases Major Album Solely To Extend Copyright Protection

By on January 12, 2013 in News 7

The New York Times on a dubious and surreal moment in the history of recorded music:

In response to provisions in a new European copyright law, Sony Music has released a compilation of early Bob Dylan recordings [subtitled] “The Copyright Extension Collection, Vol. 1” — that was rushed to a handful of record shops in Germany, France, Sweden and Britain just after Christmas. Only about 100 copies of the four-CD set were produced, with sparse packaging.

The point of the release was to keep the recordings under copyright protection in Europe, where the laws are in flux.  A change extending copyright in the European Union to 70 years will be in effect by 2014. But recordings cannot benefit unless they were published before the 50-year term expired. The recordings on “Copyright Extension” were about to fall over that legal precipice.

… Read the rest

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Man Sentenced to 15 Years in Jail for Selling Six Counterfeit Discs

By on November 18, 2012 in News 11

Picture: Flickr, quinn.anya (CC)

I guess they’re calling it Copyright Terrorism! This report shows just how friendly the recording industry is with your friendly neighborhood law enforcement.

Via RT:

A Mississippi man was sentenced to 15 years behind bars and another three under supervised release this week after pleading guilty to selling five counterfeit DVDs and one bootleg music CD to an undercover agent.

Patrick Lashun King, 37, was sentenced by Judge Lamar Pickard of Copiah County Circuit Court after he pleaded guilty to six counts of selling pirated material, charges that he was lobbed with after an undercover agent attempted to purchase just a half-dozen homemade copies of music and movies the defendant wasn’t authorized to have up for sale.

When investigators searched King’s home and businesses, they eventually turned up 10,510 counterfeit discs and the computer equipment they believe he used to manufacture the bootlegs. The Clarion Ledger notes that authorities also uncovered a number of weapons, including an assault rifle, from King’s Hazlehurst, MS home, but it was only the six counts of piracy that will put him away until 2027.

… Read the rest

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Demonoid Domain Names Now Up For Sale

By on August 17, 2012 in News 6

If any of you intrepid Demonoid users out there have been wondering what has become of your most trusted torrent site (even their affable ‘site down’ page went missing) after the DDoS attack and alleged raid last week, it turns out that things may be worse than we expected.

via David Murphy at PCMag:

The Demonoid domain names are now officially for sale via Sedo, the final nail in the coffin for the popular site that was taken down via a combined assault from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and Interpol.

Inquiries and investigations spanned both Ukraine and Mexico, arriving in the wake of a distributed denial of service attack that kept Demonoid offline for a week or so prior to authorities going after Demonoid’s hosting and leadership.

“The operation to close Demonoid was a great example of international cooperation to tackle a service that was facilitating the illegal distribution of music on a vast scale.

… Read the rest

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Anonymous Wreaks Revenge On Pirate Bay Censor

By on May 9, 2012 in News 12

Don’t mess with “open and free internets”! Robert Andrews reports on Anonymous’ latest target for Gigaom:

God forbid anyone incur the combined wrath of both The Pirate Bay and Anonymous.

The hacking collective is claiming responsibility for levelling a successful distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack on the websites of Virgin Media.

Anonymous tweet

Virgin became the first UK ISP to block its subscribers’ access to The Pirate Bay last week, following a High Court ruling that the Bay breaches record label copyrights and should be blocked…

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Kopimism (The IP Pirate Religion) Takes Root In America

By on April 22, 2012 in News 5

KopimizmAmerican online pirates now have places to worship, reports Jason Koebler for US News:

A Swedish religion whose dogma centers on the belief that people should be free to copy and distribute all information—regardless of any copyright or trademarks—has made its way to the United States.

Followers of so-called “Kopimism” believe copying, sharing, and improving on knowledge, music, and other types of information is only human—the Romans remixed Greek mythology, after all, they say. In January, Kopimism—a play on the words “copy me”—was formally recognized by a Swedish government agency, raising its profile worldwide.

“Culture is something that makes people feel much better and makes people appreciate their world in a different way. Knowledge is also something we should copy regardless of the law,” says Isak Gerson, the 20-year-old founder of Kopimism. “It makes us better when we share knowledge and culture with each other.”

More than 3,500 people “like” Kopimism on Facebook, and thousands more practice its sacred ritual of file sharing.

… Read the rest

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Download Physical Objects To Your 3D Printer

By on March 5, 2012 in News 16

6589076741_7c49f4d4d9In the future, you will be able to pirate everything. Pirate Bay has a new category called Physibles, for pirating tangible objects — think designer furniture,  fashion accessories, et cetera — with the help of a 3D printer:

We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. We decided to call them: Physibles. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare parts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years.

The benefit to society is huge. No more shipping huge amount of products around the world. No more child labour. We’ll be able to print food for hungry people. We’ll be able to share not only a recipe, but the full meal. We’ll be able to actually copy that floppy, if we needed one.

… Read the rest

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